Ramblings about knitting, life, exploits, and other things.

November 15, 2013

On Healthcare - A Monetary Comparison

I'm in an interesting position of being able to do some straight up comparisons.

In the past few months I've seen a Western Medicine Medical Doctor, a Naturopathic Doctor, and a Licensed Acupuncturist. Actually, I saw all three within a week of each other back in September. It is only now that I actually have the numbers for the medical doctor.

The Western Doc billed my insurance a total of $580.00 for five minutes with me. That was broken out into $290.00 for going in the door because now it's an "outpatient sattelite office of the hospital" and not a clinic; $105.00 for seeing the doc himself, and $185.00 for spraying liquid nitrogen on what was reported to the insurance company as "destruction of flat warts." So far, I've paid $50.00 (my co-pay). It looks like I've still got about $20.00 left after the insurance company kicks in.

The Licensed Acupuncturist charged me on a sliding scale, but maximum $35.00 for a full session (plus $10.00 additional for the fifteen minutes he spent with me in our introductory session. He did not charge me to write up his "diagnosis" or list the points he used).

The Naturopathic Doctor charged me $80.00 for a comprehensive session in which he took my blood, looked at it in the scope right there, showed it to me, and spent a total of 90 minutes explaining everything he found.

So, let's play with some statistics, shall we?

Western Doc w/ hospital surcharges = $96.67 per minuteAccupuncturist = ~$2.25 per minute (excluding the time I spent resting, occupying space but not his actual time, which I'm treating as free)

Naturopathic Doctor = $0.88 per minute.

Now, admittedly, the Naturopathic doctor did prescribe supplements and a fasting regimen (consuming "medical food" for three days to clear my body of junk that oughtn't have been put in in the first place, and junk that my body put out when I was living with way too much stress). So, he DID cost me more, but not in terms of his time. Additionally, he answers questions for free.

While we're at it, let's look for a second at results:

Western Doc: removed four skin lesions. The one on my face is gone. The ones on the back of my legs -- still visible. The one on my back? not sure, the lump is gone, but since I can't SEE it, I've no idea what it looked like before or after. Questions remaining? plenty.

Accupuncturist: In all fairness, I didn't achieve the return rate he recommended - my hours and his don't match well. But I did see a difference. Questions remaining? not really.

Naturopath: I feel better generally, and have lost 15 pounds without doing the exercising I'm supposed to be doing. I'll see him again in another month or so to look at the blood again so we can SEE results. Questions remaining? none immediate, but I know when and where to get answers, and all answers are free until we look at the blood again.

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AMEN!

Feeling blessed that I took your advice and went to see the acupuncturist. I've been seeing more improvement in 3 weeks than I have in the 2+ years I've been trying to get the western medicine docs to help me... (plus who knew the "resting, occupying space" time was going to be something I so look forward to?)